Much more than "only a tenuous connection"

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Jun 21, 2011 at 17:11

Dr. Pipes wrote

" Modern Greeks have only a tenuous connection to the Greeks of antiquity."

If language (modern Greek is a direct descendant of and easily deducible from the Hellenistic 'koine' ) and the continuous historical record of more than 4000 years with most of that deep time filled with political life interrupted tragically between 1453 -1821 by the Turkish barbarity are "only a tenuous connection", then modern Greeks have a much less tenuous connection to their ancient ancestors than, say, the local Polish Jews have had to the Macchabees.Yiddish they spoke is no descendant of ancient Hebrew at all and they hadn't had any political life for the last 1900 years or more. What is more striking, many even didn't identify themsleves with Judaism which then defined the Jewish people as a distinct group.True, things changed radically with the holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel for which incidentally more potent forces were at work than just the handful of wretched Jewish holocaust survivors.

Jakob Fallmerayer's theory on Greeks is very interesting but it misses one important point - the role of Greek Asia Minor.While Greece proper was flooded by Slavic tribes they never occupied all of Greece and consequently Greeks from Asia Minor quite shortly re-Hellenized the parts of Greece colonized by Slavs with the exception of the Ezerites and the Millingi in the Peloponnese.So there is no need to repeat what has become the favourite Turkish lie - denying 4000 years of continuous recorded history to one of the most ancient and original nations in Europe to which we owe our higher culture as the sheer number of Greek words pertaining to science,culture, philosophy,art in every European language clearly demonstrates.

Turks themselves in accordance with the official doctrine of the infalliblity of Kemal's ideas repeat after him that the ancient Greeks were of Turkic origin and so Homer was a Turk by birth. But in Turkey disagreeing with what Kemal said is equivalent to 'insulting Ataturk" and there is a special law that criminalizes disclosing Kemal's absurdities and ignorance.

Last not least , it's worth remembering what early renaissance Greek philosopher Georgios Gemistos Plithon said shortly before the 4000 year old Greek history came it its tragic end in 1453 :

"Έλληνες γάρ το γένος εσμεν, ως η ημετέρα γλώσσα και παιδεία μαρτυρεί." "We are Greeks in terms of nationality (race) as our language and culture witness."

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